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NSC’68 Second Source Evaluation: Revisiting NSC 68 by Ken Young

My second source evaluation of my research paper is the journal Revisiting “NSC 64” by Ken Young. He starts with providing a brief discussion of the various historical context of the document, such as a controversies and of usage of languages, it’s styles and tones. After this, Young investigates the historiography of NSC 68, connecting with recent writings that enable us to know think about U.S. foreign policy in broader aspects.

The part of this journal that most attracted me was a section “Continuity or Major Departure?,” and number of thoughtful conclusions that Young brought up. In the section of “Continuity or Major Departure?” Young starts with revisiting the contested issue of whether NSC 68 represented continuity with past policy or a sharp departure from it. He argues that for the defenders of NSC 68, the document represented continuity with the policy of George F. Kennan, whereas, for critics, it marked a sharp departure, amounting to “the confrontational turn in U.S. foreign policy.”(12) Along this, though it did not explained thoroughly, it also revealed slightly about the timing of North Korea invading South Korea, which one of my major interest in this research paper.

Major part of this source evaluation about my research paper was Young’s concluding point, which was mentioned above. While writing this journal, he observes that “The significance of NSC 68 is not that it proposed a new view of the U.S. national security interest” (32) but “more immediate
but ultimately more apocalyptic assessment of the Soviet threat.” (32) Before I started researching, I was agreeing with the first half of the preceding sentence, but with many of basis that he evaluated from various documents, he concluded majorly with Soviet Union.